To the fast
and heartless, the 1913 natural disaster = $$$. Four authors of bestselling instant disaster books monetized misery to ring up millions in sales before the flood was even over. Ka-CHING!
Hardly
a day or two after the Great Easter Tornado of 1913 had roared through Omaha,
Nebraska, killing 109 and dismembering countless others, chartered excursion
trains chugged into the city; disembarked tourists ambled through
still-smoking ruins and spread picnic cloths on piles of bricks to dine al fresco
amidst the weeping and the misery. The streets of Dayton, Ohio, were still deep
in mud and chaos when adventurous gawkers began showing up—until the Ohio
National Guard roughly drafted the able-bodied males into service clearing
flood debris.
But no one could get away from the
instant disaster books, which raked in millions from the wreckage of other
people’s lives. Four authors (at least two hiding
 |
| Five 1913 instant disaster books, all plagiarizing other people's prose, were published and selling while the flood crest was still roaring down the Mississippi River. [Credit: Trudy E. Bell] |
behind pseudonyms) and publishers—including
one Bible publisher— swooped down like vultures to feed on the carcass of catastrophe.
With what must surely have been blatant disregard of the protections of other
authors under the 1891 copyright law, they turned out entire hardbound books of
lightly rewritten newspaper accounts, topical editorial cartoons, poems,
sermons, and maudlin prose. They raced their pickings to print with a speed
that would be impressive even with today’s digital publishing. Not three weeks after the Great Easter
mammoth storm system had laid waste to the Midwest and the flood crest was still
roaring down the Mississippi, publishers were registering copyrights to so-called
“Memorial Edition” instant books immortalizing the agony.
These books still turn up today in
second-hand bookshops and are widely available online. Who wrote them? Who published
them?
As the books have such similar
titles—and the authors have such suspiciously similar names—the captions to
each photo here are scorecards clearly introducing the players. Note the key fact
that a title on the cover of a book may differ from that on the title page.
 |
| Title on cover: Horrors
of Tornado Flood and Fire. Memorial Edition. Title on title page: Memorial Edition. Horrors of Tornado Flood and Fire.Author(s): Frederick E. Drinker, “The Well-Known Author” Publisher: [None given; no city given] Copyrighted by: George W. Bertron |
By 1913, mass-market disaster
narratives—their speed made possible by the invention of the linotype around
1880—had evolved over several decades into a well-defined pattern, appearing most
recently after the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Sometimes called
“dollar books” for their standard price (equivalent to about $25 today), many
were sold by subscription: A publisher would print up a prospectus with example
photographs and text, which door-to-door salesmen could show to potential
buyers, take orders, and collect payments in advance. Some of these books put
today’s bestsellers to shame for sheer popularity, allegedly selling upward of
a million copies; even if you skeptically drop those claims an order of
magnitude, the sales figures still impress. The books profiting from the 1913 natural
disaster followed true to formula. Their title pages promised a “graphic and
tragic” “authentic account” of “the appalling loss of life, the terrible suffering
of the homeless,” complete with “panic-stricken multitudes and heart-rending
scenes of agony,“ “vandals plundering bodies of the dead,” and “thrilling tales
of heroic deeds” with “Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death.”
Whew. Sakes alive. Pardon me, my
dear sales clerk, while I fan myself before reaching with trembling
fingers for my purse.
For all the books’ popularity,
their authors remain in the shadows. Nor do most of the books name a publisher.
Yet the tiny copyright notices on the backs of title pages—when paired with
records of copyright registrations and catalogues of publishers—reveal clues to
untangling identifies (thank you, internet!).
 |
|
Title on
cover: Our National Calamity of Fire,
Flood and Tornado. Thrilling Stories with Photographs and Sketches.
Title on title page: The True Story of Our National Calamity of Fire, Flood and Tornado. Author(s): Logan Marshall “Author” Publisher: [None given; no city given] Copyrighted by: L. T. Myers |
I have acquired five 1913 instant
disaster books, but evidence found online suggests that at least two came out
in multiple editions. Let’s start with what appears to be the least rapacious and
work up to the most vulturous.
Horrors of Tornado Flood and Fire was written by Frederick E. Drinker
“The Well-Known Author,” who later wrote biographies of Booker T. Washington
and Theodore Roosevelt. No publisher is indicated in the book itself, but the Catalogue of Copyright Entries lists the
book as being published by National Publishing Co., a Philadelphia publisher owned
by the indicated copyright holder George W. Bertron.
Our National Calamity of Fire, Flood
and Tornado was
written by Logan Marshall, whose six or eight other books ranged from Mother
Goose nursery rhymes to the Panama Canal to (several years after the 1913
flood) the Great War. This book seems to have come out in two separate editions.
The edition I have is copyrighted by L.T. Myers, about whom I can find nothing.
The Catalogue of Copyright Entries indicates
that it was published by George F. Lasher and John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia.
About the former I can find nothing, but the latter acquired the International
Bible Agency in 1892, thereby becoming a major publisher of Bibles.
 |
| Page from a prospectus for a subscription edition of Logan Marshall's book shows a change in the preposition "of" to "by" and the $1.00 base price. Note that Marshall claims to have sold a million copies of his Titanic book, and doubtless hopes "Our National Calamity" of 1913 will reap similar sales. Credit: HathiTrust |
One gem in
the HathiTrust Digital Library is a prospectus for Marshall's book whose title page
indicates it would be published by the International Bible House—and that for
that edition, the preposition “Of” would be changed to “By” so the title would
read Our National Calamity by Fire, Flood
and Tornado. It was also claimed that an unspecified portion of the profits
would be donated to the National Relief Fund (whatever that was). Although the
prospectus chapters seem similar to the edition I have, the numbering indicates
that three extra chapters may have been added here and there throughout the
subscription edition, which also may have had more pages.
 |
| Title on cover: Tragic
Story of America’s Greatest Disaster. Complete. Authentic. Tornado Flood and
Fire in Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska and Mississippi Valley States. Title on title page: [very similar] Author(s): Marshall Everett “The Great Descriptive Writer” Publisher: J. S. Ziegler Company, Chicago, Illinois Copyrighted by: Henry Neil |
Tragic Story of America’s Greatest
Disaster, published
by the J. S. Ziegler Company,
Chicago, was written under the nom de plume of Marshall Everett, “The Great
Descriptive Writer.” The real author was Henry Neil (1863-1939), who is listed
as the copyright holder. Neil was apparently a judge in Chicago who actively
pushed to get a statewide law for widows’ pensions enacted in Illinois, supposedly
the first state to do so. He also founded an organization called The
Centenarian Club, Inc., which (according to its letterhead stationery) was “a
nonprofit humanitarian association which scientifically teaches people how to
live and enjoy health and happiness for more than one hundred years.” (Too bad the
portly Judge Neil himself fell short by 23 years). He was friendly with the
likes of George Bernard Shaw; he published self-described “weird” short stories
and later the self-described “world’s greatest novel” All Things Are Possible under his own name; and he wrote demanding
letters to the U.S. State Department about military policy decisions that got
the Feds to start a file on him that was later declassified. As “Marshall
Everett,” Neil wrote book after book on widows’ pensions, biographies of U.S.
Presidents, and major disasters.
Now we get to the greatest shape-shifter of shameless disaster
profiteers, Thomas Herbert Russell (1862–1947). Although he usually wrote
 |
| Title on cover: America’s
Greatest Flood and Tornado Calamity. Tragic Stories of Escapes from Flood Fire
and Famine. Races With Death. Heroic Rescues. Memorial Edition. Title on title page: Story of the Great Flood and Cyclone Disasters: America’s Greatest Calamity. Author(s): Edited by Thomas H. Russell, A.M., LL.D. “Author and Journalist” with “Special Message of Spiritual Consolation” by Fred S. Miller Publisher: [None given; no city given] Copyrighted by: Thomas H. Morrison |
books
as Thomas H. Russell, his name on some books appears as Thomas Herbert Russell,
T. H. Russell or Thomas Herbert (using his middle name). He seems to acquire
degrees as needed for the subject of the book: generally he put “M.A., LL.D.”
after his name (never mentioning the institutions of higher learning that
granted the initials), but sometimes it is “A.M.” or “LL.B.” Topics of his book
range from advertising and salesmanship to biographies of U.S. Presidents, the
history of the Great War, several books on automotive ignition, timing, and
valve setting(!), automobile driving self-taught, and motorboats—for which he
conveniently acquires an “M.E.” in mechanical engineering. Depending on the
topic of the book, he variously claims to be a member of the National
Geographic Society and of the American Historical Association, former editor of
Modern Machinery, former
editor-in-chief of Webster’s Universal
Dictionary, and “noted historical and military writer.” He gives himself
room for more claims by ending each mini-biography “etc., etc.”
In 1913, Russell generated at least five editions of a single
book under different titles and authors. Hey, five seemingly different books, no
additional work, five times the profit, especially from those book collectors
who want one of each. Clever business model. (One wonders how many times he
sold the same house.) I own two of these books, but found the other editions online—and
suspect there may be others. Two of the books he “edited” with Fred S. Miller; one
he “edited”—under Thomas Herbert—with J. Martin Miller (despite the
similarities in the names of the coauthors, the two Millers may have been
different people according to birth dates in WorldCat). The editions almost require
a degree in library science to differentiate them. Russell seems
 |
| Title on cover: Swept
By Mighty Waters. The Great Tornado, Flood and Fire. A Story of Fearful Fact
More Thrilling than Any Fiction and More Pathetic Than Any Tragedy Ever Staged
by Man. Title on title page: Swept By Mighty Waters. The Appalling Power of Nature. Author(s): by Thomas H. Russell, A.M., LL.D. “Author” Publisher: Laird & Lee, Chicago Copyrighted by: William H. Lee |
to have used
two separate titles—America’s Greatest
Flood and Tornado Calamity and Story
of the Great Flood and Cyclone Disasters—in different permutations and
combinations of covers and title pages to get at least three editions, one with
the bogus “Herbert” pen name. And for additional profits, he threw in a totally
different title—Swept By Mighty Waters,
allegedly written—not edited—alone by Russell, his baldest claim to original
authorship of other people’s prose. This version was translated into German as Rasende Fluten und Tobende Stürm, in
which his pen name became one-L Russel. The contents of all four books in
English: absolutely identical, right down to the pagination.
The mystery is their publisher(s). The copyright holder of
three of them is Thomas H. Morrison, about whom I can find nothing. The Catalogue of Copyright Entries indicates
that at least two were published by the Robert O. Law Co., about which I can
find nothing. The English and German versions of Swept By Mighty Waters were both copyrighted by William H. Lee and
published by Laird & Lee in Chicago, which was a well-known subscription
book publisher. Now, I hope there was a happy legal understanding between
Thomas H. Morrison and William H. Lee, because bear in mind that both were
copyrighting the identical text—only
the titles differed! Ditto for the publishers Robert O. Law Co. and Laird &
Lee.
 |
| Title on cover: Rasende
Fluten und Tobende Stürm Title on title page: [very similar] Author(s): Thomas H. Russel [sic], A.M., LL.D., translated by Max Heyer Publisher: Laird & Lee, Chicago Copyrighted by: William H. Lee |
The speed with which all the instant books were rushed into
print is given by their copyright dates. Logan Marshall, Russell/Russel/Herbert,
and Everett/Neil were racing each other to file on April 11 and 12—literally
less than three weeks after the Easter tornadoes. Drinker brought up the rear
on May 5. Even Russell’s German translator Max Heyer was cracking the whip to convert
all the words by May 19. These are 300-page books! Drinker at least was trying
to be a writer rather than a compiler, and Heyer had to have been a UN-class
simultaneous translator. If the printers and binders worked as fast, people may
have been paging through bound volumes before the 1913 floodwaters were exiting
from the mouth of the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico around May 1.
Although the books are disjointed and self-contradictory, and
they plagiarized almost verbatim newspaper stories written by others, they all recognized
one great truth that somehow later faded from collective consciousness: the
national scale of the disaster from Nebraska to New York and down the
Mississippi. Marshall’s Our National
Calamity—a title inspired by
words of President Woodrow Wilson, and that inspired the name of this blog—pictured
the eastern half of the U.S. on its front cover. The frontispiece of Russell’s Swept By Mighty Waters is a map of the
nation showing the states
 |
| Map at the front of Russell's Swept by Mighty Waters shows recognition of the 1913 natural disaster's national scale. |
afflicted. Although Everett’s Tragic Story of America’s Greatest Disaster also mentions the
Mississippi Valley States on the cover, none of the books actually cover what
happened in the south because they were rushed to print too soon.
Lasting legacy? For better or worse, the instant disaster books
actually may have helped show the Red Cross how to use an emotional hook raise
money: shortly thereafter, the Red Cross itself began using pulp
narrative style of “delicious horrors” in its own magazines to set female hearts a-flutter and excite
sympathy that translated into donations.
Important postscript:
The author who wasn’t. Google has perpetuated (created?) a spurious attribution that one 1913
disaster book was written by Herbert Victor Prochnow (1897-1998). Prochnow was
real (a well-known banker and toastmaster who wrote several books on public
speaking), but was still only a boy of 15 in March-April 1913. No actual 1913 instant
disaster book bears his name. (All over the internet, Google—and, alas, other
websites whose creators must not have looked at the actual book—erroneously
lists Prochnow as a coauthor of one Russell book whose title page reads America’s Greatest Flood and Tornado
Calamity with the pseudonym Thomas Herbert. Why is a mystery, because
nowhere does Prochnow’s name appear. One can only speculate that the error may
have started as a cyber-glitch associating Prochnow’s first name Herbert with
Russell’s pseudonymous last name Herbert.) Know thy authors!
©2013 Trudy
E. Bell. For permission to reprint or use, contact Trudy E. Bell at t.e.bell@ieee.org
Next time: March
1913–2013 Centennial Month! Commemorative Events Update
Selected References
Supplementing
the instant books themselves, these references provided highly useful
background:
A gold mine
about Henry Neil a/k/a Marshall Everett amassed by the Federal government
appears at this Fold 3 portal, which will get you into the declassified dossier
of Judge Henry Neil.
Library of
Congress. Copyright Office. Catalogue of
Copyright Entries. Part I. Books, Group 1. 1913. N.s. vol. 10. For the Year
1913. Nos. 1–156. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913. Absolutely key
to verifying pseudonyms and revealing publishers and copyright filing dates.
The American Catalog 1908–1910. New York: Office of Publishers;
Weekly. 1911. I was unable to find the volume for 1912–1913, but this earlier
volume still answered some questions about publishers.
Rozario,
Kevin, “’Delicious Horrors’: Mass Culture, the Red Cross, and the Appeal ofModern American Humanitarianism," American
Quarterly 55 (3): 417–455, September 2003, builds a compelling case that
the extraordinary rise of mass humanitarianism in the early twentieth-century
was fueled by judicious use of sensationalism and pulp fiction techniques in
print and other promotional media—that the display of the appalling was key to
making the appeal.
White, Jay,
“’God’s Ark’: Subscription Book Publishing and the Titanic,” Acadiensis 28 (2): Spring 1999. Although focused on the instant disaster books for the sinking of the Titanic, there is much history relevant
to 1913, and the cast of characters is the same (including Marshall Everett.
Fred S. Miller, Logan Marshall, Thomas H. Russell, plus the publishers).
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